Canada’s freestyle halfpipe stars thrilled over 2014 Olympics entry

Gary Kingston, Vancouver Sun04.06.2011

Sarah Burke of Whistler poses with her gold medal after winning the Women's Skiing Superpipe at Winter X Games 13 on Buttermilk Mountain in January 2009 in Aspen, Colo. She’s confident she’ll be at her peak when the Sochi Olympic roll around in 2014.

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VANCOUVER — The reigning world champions in men’s and women’s ski halfpipe are Canadians. So, too, is the overall World Cup winner on the women’s side.

You might say the Great White North has got a high-flying head-start on the rest of the world now that the exciting freestyle discipline, where skiers perform gravity-defying tricks off the 22-foot-high icy walls of a snow chute, has been added to the Olympic schedule for 2014 in Sochi.

The IOC executive board, keen to attract a younger demographic, officially approved on Wednesday the addition of ski halfpipe, women’s ski jumping and team events in luge and figure skating.

But hold onto that double cork 1260 for just a minute. (For those unfamiliar with Generation Next, that’s one of those pipe tricks). Projecting two or three medals for Canada in Sochi is far from a lock.

“We’ve certainly got excellent prospects for 2014 … there are three or four girls right now that could medal,” says Peter Judge, CEO of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association. “And had it been a normal situation, we could have protected our lead and skated to the finish line.

“But the game changer is airbag technology.”

The giant 80-foot-by-80-foot cushion bags are popping up at ski resorts all over the world and are going to allow technical expertise to increase exponentially and bring more athletes into the fold.

Fuelled by the desire of younger halfpipe skiers and snowboarders to add new and more dangerous tricks to their runs, the high-end airbags and foam pits allow athletes to train without fear of catastrophic landings on the deck of the pipe. They can focus solely on the trick’s air mechanics.

“It makes all the difference in how much progression you can achieve,” says Mike Riddle, the Squamish-based Edmonton native who won the world championship title in February.

He says the first skier to pull off a “double 12” in early 2010 got to an airbag before anybody else.

“For the rest of us, it was like ‘it looks easy. I bet I can do it, but I don’t want to try it first time in the pipe.’ [Last] summer, people got on an airbag and now everyone’s got that trick,” said Riddle, who joined three other Canadians in paying their own way to Mt. Hood, Ore., to use an airbag there. “There’s going to be tons of room for progression between now and the Olympics.”

Judge, who notes the CFSA currently has an airbag on order and will place it in Whistler, says the challenge for his organization will be to apply the lessons it learned from the introduction of other disciplines, including ski cross in 2010, “and try to stay ahead of that curve.”

While Riddle was winning the men’s world title at Deer Valley, Utah, Roz Groenwoud of Calgary and Keltie Hansen of Edmonton went 1-2 on the women’s side. In addition, veteran Sarah Burke of Squamish, who was instrumental in getting X Games organizers to finally include women’s ski halfpipe at the birthplace of extreme sports, years after the men were competing, won the World Cup women’s title.

“Even though we had a pretty good feeling about it, I’m definitely way happier than I thought I was going to be,” Burke said Wednesday from Vancouver International Airport, where she was preparing to fly to Memphis to compete in a fund-raising triathlon for St. Jude’s Hospital.

Even though she’ll be 31 by the time Sochi rolls around, Burke believes she can be a gold medal contender.

“Definitely, 100 per cent. I’m getting better and I’ve had my sights on this for some time. There’s no way I’m going to let it slip away. I’m very confident I’ll be at my peak then.”

Riddle says having the chance to compete in the Olympics is a “dream come true,” noting he got hooked on freestyle skiing watching the moguls competitors at Nagano in 1998,

“We’ve been pushing for it for four years, if not longer. It’s a huge weight off my mind. Now I’ve got a set goal to train for. Hopefully, it’ll be my time in 2014.”

The new team events in luge and figure skating should be good for Canada, which has depth in both sports.

The Canadian luge squad has hit the World Cup podium a few times in the team event the last couple of years.

In that event, a female slider, a male slider and a doubles team each complete one run for a combined final time. The athletes hit a pad at the finish to open the gate at the start for the next slider.

The IOC delayed a decision on slopestyle skiing and snowboarding until a further review of the facilities in Sochi.

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